Houston man charged with training with al Qaeda in Somalia

Houston Chronicle:

A former Houston resident has been arrested and charged with training to fight jihad with al-Qaida forces in Somalia.

Daniel Joseph Maldonado, 28, is charged with receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and conspiring to use an explosive device outside the United States.

According to a U.S. Justice Department official, he is the first American charged with joining forces with Islamic extremist fighters in Somalia. Recently, Pentagon officials acknowledged that in early January, U.S. warplanes targeted al-Qaida leaders in southern Somalia. Maldonado is accused of living and training with al-Qaida forces in the region.

Maldonado arrived with FBI agents at Ellington Field in Houston around 7:30 p.m. Monday. He has an initial hearing before a federal judge this afternoon.

According to the criminal complaint, Maldonado is an U.S.-born Muslim convert who told FBI officials that he had "no problem" killing or fighting Americans and that he had "no problem" with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. In court, Maldonado, also known as Daniel Aljughaifi, said his parents and children resided in and near New Hampshire.

...

He was arrested in Kenya after fleeing Somalia when the Islamist religious bigots were defeated. He is being held in a federal detention facility in Houston. He is certainly exhibit number one that the claim that al Qaeda was operating Somalia was true. His arrest also suggest that the Islamist rout was pretty effective in disrupting that organization. It appears that Kenya had some success at sealing it border. It is too bad he is not going to be trasferred to Gitmo for interrogation. He should then be held there until the end of the war.

Incredible, the UK released four terror suspects captured in the same area on to their streets after bringing them home.

...

The four, who are British citizens of North-African origin in their twenties, were seized on the Kenyan border with Somalia by special forces - possibly the SAS, who are known to be operating in the area.

They were reportedly trying to escape from Somalia where they were suspected of fighting in a Jihadi struggle with terrorists linked to Al Qaeda.

The suspects were handed over to the Kenyans, who deported them back to Somalia - where they faced the death penalty from authorities engaged in a violent power struggle with Islamic extremists.

But the men - named by Kenya as Mohammed Ezzouek, Hamza Chentouf, Shah Jehan Janjua and Fesal Afshar Zabequn - were plucked to safety by the Foreign Office consul.

At UK taxpayer's expense, they were flown to Kenya on a special charter flight and then to Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, on an RAF plane.

...

Do you ever get the impression that some in the UK are not really serious about this war. This seems like a very imprudent act. They import terror suspects that they do not have the resources or laws to contain, and now they will be putting these unemployed terrors suspects on welfare. Incredible!

The Jawa Report has good back ground material on the American who was charged in Houston.